(Canada, 91 min.)
Dir. Michèle
Hozer
Programme:
Canadian Spectrum (World Premiere)
“In the
most delightful way!” Yes, Mary Poppins was indeed correct when she flew into
town on her brolley and sang that a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go
down. Director Michèle Hozer gets the recipe just right in Sugar Coated as she whips
up an intelligent argument with a dash of playful humour. This doc smartly
articulates the dangers in consuming sugar in excess quantities, and audiences
are likely to swallow this dose of what’s good for them given how succinctly
and sweetly Hozer conveys the argument.
Sugar Coated isn’t the bitter medicine of, say, Fed Up since it gets audiences thinking rather than getting them riled up. The effect’s better in the long term because a dash of anger works just like an overdose of sugar: a quick burst of energy soon fizzles into fatigue. Sugar Coated, on the other hand, knows that a film can go the distance with a well-balanced diet. Audiences need the facts and figures to get a sound and clear argument, and some talking heads let viewers eat their vegetables with leafy insights. A spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down, too, since Hozer sprinkles the film with a winking humour that keeps the film tasty. It’s not dry fat-free cardboard: every good film needs a little flavour.
Amidst all the science stuff of Sugar Coated are fun Mad Men-y accents and notes from “The
Nutcracker” that swirl the film with the sweetness of the 60s in which sugary
confections affirmed themselves a staple of the grocery aisle and America’s
fifth food group. Some shrewd Don Drapers in the public relations department
spun sugar so smartly that it wove itself into our collective happiness. Jazzy
music lightens the mood too, while an overall good sense of humour keeps the
film quick on its feet. Everything’s good in moderation, and the film shows
that a little bit of sugar is never a bad thing: one simply needs to know the
difference between a healthy portion and excess quantities, but moderation is particularly
null nowadays when sugar is an invisible ingredient in processed foods of all
kinds.
Don’t let the sweet tooth of Sugar Coated fool you: this is one sharp
doc. Hozer tackles the health risks of sugar with a shrewd eye that looks at
the industry from all angles. Kids are getting fatter and diabetes is at an all
time high, and the science says that sugar is killing the future. It might even
be toxic according to one convincing expert, Dr. Robert Lustig, interviewed in
the film.
Sugar Coated largely keeps the
discussion jargon-free, though, and tackles another layer of the issue that
lets sugar dissolve and seep through the cracks of global health systems. Hozer
finds some unexpected parallels in the sugar debate by interviewing figures who
liken the efforts of Big Sugar to those of Big Tobacco in the days when people
woke up to the fatal effects of smoking. Both sugar and tobacco are sources of
pleasure and character—like birthday cake and the Marlboro Man—and they’re
cases in which a positive emotion trumps a negative one if the spin-doctors
skew the facts just right.
The film gets some eye-opening
evidence into the organized effort to deceive consumers about the potentially
harmful effects of sugar when one interviewee, dentist Cristin Kearns, uncovers
a mine of documents from Big Sugar. These secret documents, James Bond-y
eyes-only confidentialities, explicitly outline an effort to change the
conversation away from sugar’s health risks and to obscure the debate so hazily
that policy against taxing or boycotting unhealthy products runs slower than a
Coke-guzzling kid in gym class. The rhetoric and calculation surrounding sugar
convincingly resembles that of cigarettes, and the grey areas created by PR
cunning add to the argument that sugar isn’t as harmless as some folks believe
it to be.
Sugar Coated smartly goes the extra step
by inviting solutions to the problem that consumers can make to live a better
and healthier life. Curbing excess sugar is one obvious choice, while the film
makes strong demands for more transparency and objectivity in the research
behind foods that kill us. Sugar Coated
reveals one corner of the food industry too many that funds the research to
keep processed food on the table, and it uses successful case studies, such as
the removal of healthy choice logos from sugary foods, as guides that consumers
and advocates can enact change if they demand it. One interviewee, Dr. Yoni
Freehoff from the University of Ottawa, even shows that the biggest steps can
be made by translating academic findings into facts that can be interpreted by
the masses that treat social media as if it’s the new sugar. Sugar Coated does this last one
especially handily. (The filmmakers have even developed the Sugar Tracker app
to help consumers make informed decisions.)
The film is most effective,
though, as it brings about such a sound argument while recreating a little
sugar high to remind audiences of the very the euphoria that advertisers equate
with sugar. Taking a stand against sugar often likens itself to being a grump,
but Sugar Coated takes the right tone
to avoid explicitly being a tyrant and a meanie while sweetly persuading
audiences that the foodthing they love, in fact, kills them. Like Mary Poppins
said, it helps the medicine go down!
Rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Rating: ★★★★ (out of ★★★★★)
Sugar Coated screens:
Fri, May 1 at Cineplex Scotiabank at 1:45 PM
Sun, May 3 at the Bloor Hot Docs Cinema at 6:45 PM
Please visit hotdocs.ca for more info on this year's festival.
Please visit hotdocs.ca for more info on this year's festival.
*Sugar Coated screens in Ottawa at The Mayfair on May 21
at 6:30 with director Michèle
Hozer in attendance!
